In my calendars I like some kind of long range RADAR, typically in form of small monthly thumbnails.
Some weeks ago I saw a design, where the current month is like a ruler at the bottom of a left page and the next month is at the bottom of the right page. Based on my sweetheart calendar I made a proof of concept. The whole week is lefthand and planning space is on the right side. The current week is shaded in the ruler for accentuation.

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The D*I*Y Planner Dynamic Template application has now hit version 2.0, ready to produce any size and shape of yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily calendars for your printing pleasure. All designs are based upon the Classic versions of the D*I*Y Planner, along with input from Doug, and so will integrate completely into your DiyP setup. (The daily design was created by Doug, but was never implemented as a static template owing to the insane amount of repetitive work required.)

Simply select your paper size, choose the calendar type, and tweak the settings to come up with your own printable set of calendars that perfectly fit your planner and your lifestyle.

The Mac version was built in Mac OS 10.4.11, using Qt 4.5.2
Here's a shot of the Mac version as it starts up:

For those who balance school, work, home/family and personal matters -- and love to do so by making lists -- this template combines list-making with a weekly planner page. This is my first attempt at a template, so suggestions are welcome.

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Being profoundly frustrated by the fact that the Levenger notecard folders don't fit in regular 3x5 notecard boxes and inspired by the 4x6 floder template from Vale Design lauded by Lifehacker.com, I made my own template for 3x5 folders that fit!

Once again, Renaissance Art is promoting another random product giveaway on their blog. This time, the item up for grabs is a prototype 3x5 ring binder.

...one of our new versatile 3 x 5 one-inch ring binders ($20). Leather lined (no suede side showing), these hand-held helpers hold about 80 cards (if the cardstock is a super-sturdy acid-free100 brightness 100# cardstock), more with other company’s lighter card stock, and will come in every color we offer: rustic brown and black and all seven Rustic Elegance colors. And the exposed rings don’t just look good—they help the covers stay flat.

To enter in the giveaway, all you need to do is go on over to the Renaissance Art blog and leave a comment at THIS POST.

Our friends at Renaissance Art are doing weekly giveaways. This week's item happens to be especially droolworthy.

Leave a comment to THIS POST to enter your name for the random drawing. You could be the owner of a prototype of one of their new discbound cover lines. This cranberry red leather cover fits a 8.5" X 5.5", 3/4" disc discbound notebook. It has 2 extra interior pockets and a pen loop. The link also has a picture of the prize, so be sure to go read and check it out.

Arthur has this to say about the new covers:

The new line will be fun, innovative and while elegant, not the same ole corporate looking stuff everyone else is carrying. PLUS... it is made right here in our Santa Fe, NM studios and not at some overseas factory in China. So, you know the quality will be superior and...since we make everything to order you will be able to TWEAK it.

"When the well's dry, we know the worth of water." - Benjamin Franklin

I used to store a lot of my articles-in-progress in Google Docs so I could work on them from any computer, but lately I've migrated most of them into regular ole' text files that sync amongst all my laptops using Dropbox (even my Linux boxes). That way I can edit HTML text in Emacs or TextMate, keep graphics and photos handy, and easily organize them in a logical directory structure. The system is working quite well, but it assumes that I have a decent memory for all those things that came before. (I don't. This is why I write things down.)

I was working on a rather involved article this long weekend. Despite my exhaustion at the time and the complexity of its structure, the words and the shaping of the concepts came quite freely. So much so, that I was feeling quite proud of myself. I was about three-quarters of the way through the rough draft when I said out loud, "This is going unbelievably well. It's almost like I wrote it before...." I paused. I thought about what I just....

Well... erm... that is... *cough*.

What I wrote was basically a carbon-copy of my old Simpleton and the Grail post from my much-fallow a million monkeys typing blog. In my defense, it was four years ago, and it didn't show up in my DIYPlanner.com search.

But the experience begs a question: am I just recycling myself? I know that some of us here tend to drift towards the same themes again and again (a lament I've heard Merlin bemoan on several occasions), and maybe those well-travelled paths form ruts that allow the carriage-driver to fall asleep at the reins, knowing that the horse knows the way. Sometimes it's hard to keep up the energy needed to spend a few hours writing when the scenery is the same.

To that end, I'm looking for ideas. What sort of articles would you like to see here on DIYPlanner? What reviews, what techniques, what products, what angles should we pursue?

Please tell us what you'd like to see, no matter how small, how grandiose, how wacky, how insignificant, or how out-of-place it might seem. Let's refill the well of our inspiration. Leave us your ideas.

There's plenty of little things we think of here that aren't meaty enough for a full article, but that might help the odd reader and perhaps instigate a little discussion. To that end, we'd like to introduce a new feature here on DIYPlanner: Quick Tips. These will be posted several times a week, and will run the gamut from pens and notebooks to creative techniques to digital productivity. (Hey, we analog luddites do occasionally use computers, too, or else you wouldn't be reading these words.) So, our first official Quick Tip:

Like the freedom of writing on an unlined page, but your words start tipping to an angle the further down the page you write? Take a tip from old-style blank writing pads. These generally come with a lined page you could slip under your current page, and there would be just enough hint of lines to keep your writing even and on track. If you don’t have such a lined page for your paper or journal, use Ygor’s dynamic templates to generate lined note pages with the line spacing and thickness that works best for you.

Do you have a quick tip? Email it to diyplanner -@AT@- gmail dot com!

Sorry for the blip, folks. We had a hardware issue but good ole' Patrick came through yet again and made the world right.

While I'm here, it's time I gave you fine folks a little update on my mysterious disappearance and what's coming up. Nothing to do with a clever anti-analog campaign by the digirati, nor an insidious blackmail attempt by those planner companies hawking non-free templates. Although either would have been a pleasant distraction.

In my day-job, I lead the new media division of a mid-sized marketing/ communications company in Canada's far north. Many of our clients have a March 31st deadline for their projects if government funding is involved in any way, and typically we could have a dozen or so large projects clogging our pipes from January till the end of March. This year we had several times that, and boy, were we busy. Not just insanely busy, but 'how the heck are we even dreaming of doing all that work' busy. But I have an efficient and dedicated team with talents I couldn't even begin to laud, and they came through once again, delivering great work on time and on budget. So now the craziness is over, and we can all rush madly to the bathroom stalls and urinals and heave great collective sighs of relief.